Monthly Causes

Each month, Krew Chiefs around the country organize either a Simple Seva Initiative or a karma yoga Community Project. A minimum of one karma yoga Community Project per season is required. Below is a list of the monthly themes with two ideas for both Simple Seva Initiatives and Community Projects to inspire your desire to serve. While the monthly themes are standardized to unite the individual krews as one karmically connected community, no krew is required to implement these choices below. They are simply suggestions should you need a little help brainstorming.

January: Supporting the Troops
While our country stands divided on the conflicts overseas, we share one unified voice in our support of our troops who day in and day out put their lives on the line.

2 Community Project Ideas:

·                    Visit a local VA Hospital or Fisher House and offering a gentle yoga class and satsang.

·                    Greet troops at the airport with welcome home banners and goodies as they return home from tours of duty.

2 Simple Seva Ideas:

·                    Adopt a soldier and hold a care package month-long collection drive for him/her through local yoga studios.

·                    Display blank greeting cards in studios all month long for students to take a few minutes to write a letter to a wounded soldier which will be sent to their hospital through the Wounded Warrior Project.

February: Serving the Family Unit
Greater than any other influence in our lives, it is our family structure that gives us our roots and our wings.

2 Community Project Ideas:

·                    Hold an Extreme Home Makeover Project to uplift a local family in need.

·                    Come together to cook! Prepare two weeks worth of meals that can be frozen to support working single parents and/or parents' with a new born baby.

2 Simple Seva Ideas:

·                    Create a wishlist for a local family in need and collect wishlist items throughout the month at participating yoga studios.

·                    Hold a $1 donation drive to send malaria nets to families in Africa. Each net can save a life! www.nothingbutnet.org

March: Giving Back to the Caregivers
While we often view service through the lens of helping those in need, this project seeks to serve those who serve others.

2 Community Project Ideas:

·                    Choose an individual or group of caregivers (teachers, nurses, nonprofits) and come together for one day to give back to them through yoga, sharing, and love!

·                    Have each project participant choose one caregiver in their life that they'd like to recognize and split up into "teams" that disperse into the community to offer small tokens of appreciation to the people and places that serve their well being.

2 Simple Seva Ideas:

·                    Display thank you cards in the studio for participants to write "thank you for no reason" notes to the people who they are grateful for in their lives.

·                    Collect all money raised through mat rentals and/or water sales during the month and have flowers delivered to all of the teachers at a local school.

April: Supporting Gaia, Mother Earth (Environmental Outreach)
Learn how to not just live on the Earth, but live with the Earth. Local krews can engage in a variety of environmentally-based projects that serve to support an awakened connection to our planet.

2 Community Project Ideas:

·                    Visit a wildlife preserve and plant lots and lots of trees to offset carbon emissions!

·                    Organize a street or beach cleanup in your neighborhood.

2 Simple Seva Ideas:

·                    Green your yoga practice and your studio with the help of the Green Yoga Association. Place recycle bins for used water bottles, offer eco-concious yoga mats and organic clothing, and display GYA's "How to Green Your Yoga Practice" at participating studios.

·                    Hold a month-long registration drive for carbonfund.org to sign people up for carbon offset programs.

May: Supporting Karma Krew!
This month all the krews around the country come together to sustain and expand the efforts of Karma Krew so that we may continue to serve the world through both the work of the Community Karma Krews and the Peace by Peace Initiatives to bring yoga-based empowerment programs to abused and neglected children. During this month, each krew facilitates a month-long yoga-thon wherein yoga students enlist "sponsors" to pledge as little as $1 for each yoga class they attend during the month. This simple, yet powerful campaign encourages people to practice more yoga, support a great cause, and drives additional traffic to participating studios throughout the month. It's great fun for everyone! 

June: Honoring the Grieving Process
The loss of a loved one is perhaps the most difficult time in one's life. Taking time to allow for grieving is an essential part of our journey. Project participants may gather in a variety of project settings to help those grieving through specially designed outreach programs or simple offerings to help ease their pain.

2 Community Project Ideas:

·                    Plant a memorial garden at a local park, school, church, or temple as a way to offer a healing space for families to honor their grieving process.

·                    Hold a free yoga class and satsang for grieving families and hospice staff at a local studio.

2 Simple Seva Ideas:

·                    Identify a member of your yoga community who recently had a loved one pass on and have participants collect donations of healing & wellness services such as massages, yoga, facials, and life coaching.

·                    Create a Heart Art Canvas to be donated to your local Hospice. The Canvas can be displayed at a local studio with colored sharpies throughout the month so students can write an inspiring message on it before or after class.

July: Serving our Seniors
As we age, we often become deprived of interaction with others and have trouble accomplishing even the most mundane tasks. Rather than casting our elderly aside, this month we seek to honor those who have come before us and paved the pathway for the many blessing we enjoy today.

2 Community Project Ideas:

·                    Visit a local nursing home and offer a gentle chair yoga class, satsang, and have each participant partner with a resident to create a "wisdom will" in which the participants support the residents in recording their life's wisdom, insights, and inspirations to pass down to a loved one.

·                    Hold a free gentle yoga class, brunch, and satsang for the "elders" of the families who practice yoga at a local studio.

2 Simple Seva Ideas:

·                    Display "What I've Learned From You" notecards throughout the month in participating studios, for students to write a letter to a dear parent or grandparent.

·                    Secretly identify the most "senior" member of your yoga community and make a homemade journal with messages of inspiration from the other students at the studio.

August: Strengthening our Schools
One of the most pressing social concerns today is the state of our school systems. This month, various local projects are aimed at enhancing the quality of schools for the new academic year.

2 Community Project Ideas:

·                    Paint a school! (Murals if you're feeling creative, or just a new paint job for the new year).

·                    Plant an organic garden at a local school to teach kids about whole foods and living/eating in harmony with the Earth.

2 Simple Seva Ideas:

·                    Hold a school supply collection drive at area yoga studios for low income families.

·                    Invite yoga students to purchase a 5 class yoga pass to their favorite studio as a gift to their child's school teacher. Some yoga studios may even support this effort by reducing the cost of the pass.

September: Our Furry Friends
There is an ancient yogic mantra that says "May all beings everywhere be happy and free." Often, this is mistakenly interpreted to apply only to the human family. Through these projects we work to protect wildlife, bring awareness to animal abuse, and enhance the living conditions of sheltered animals.

2 Community Project Ideas:

·                    Visit a local zoo, wildlife sanctuary, animal hospital or no-kill shelter and volunteer for a day in any capacity needed.

·                    Many local animal shelters offer daylong adoptions of cats and dogs to spend a day with a loving human. Organize a group adoption for a day in the park!

2 Simple Seva Ideas:

·                    Hold a collection drive to adopt an African animal or family of animals to help preserve these indigenous and exotic species. Adoptions made available through the African Wildlife Foundation @ www.awf.org.

·                    Visit the website for the National Wildlife Foundation, www.nwf.org, and print out current petitions to congress to speak out against development and building in areas that will harm indigenous wildlife.

October: Raising Awareness of Women's Issues
All too often, violence and prejudice against women goes unseen and unheard. This month we seek to uplift and empower women who have been victims of violence in its many forms.

2 Community Project Ideas:

·                    Visit a local domestic violence shelter for women and share in an empowerment through embodiment yoga class and satsang.

·                    Organize a candlelight vigil, prayer for peace, and free yoga class at an area park to honor area women who have been victims of domestic violence.

2 Simple Seva Ideas:

·                    Hold an "empowering book" drive at local studios for yoga students to donate books that have inspired them to act with clarity in courage in their lives. With each donation, offer a blank bookmark for the yoga student to write a personal message of inspiration on for the recipient of the book. Donate the books to a local women's shelter.

·                    Do a "beauty product" drive to collect things like shampoos, conditioners, makeup , lotions, etc. Then, make beauty bags for women living at local shelters.

 

November: Abused and Neglected Children
Perhaps there is no issue more disconcerting than that of child abuse. This month Karma Krews around the country work to uplift, empower, and inspire children who have faced unjust traumas and abuse in their young lives.

2 Community Project Ideas:

·                    Visit a local shelter for abused and neglected children and decorate it for the holidays!

·                    Deliver a Thanksgiving Day Meal to a local children's shelter along with a gratitude-inspired yoga practice.

2 Simple Seva Ideas:

·                    Support Karma Krew's annual fundraiser, Karma Kastles, A Sand Sculpture Festival & Fundraiser in Jupiter, Florida, which serves to support Karma Krew and our Peace by Peace Initiative to bring yoga-based empowerment programs to abused and neglected children living in shelters. Think about how your yoga practice has served you and imagine what it can do for a child who has been abused. You can sponsor a Karma Kastles sand-sculpting team from afar with various fundraising goals and help bring the power of this practice to the places where it is needed most!

·                    Hold a toy drive at local studios to provide children living in shelters with gifts for the holiday season.

December: The Plight of Poverty
Homelessness and poverty have risen to epidemic levels in our country. Within each big city and small town there exists a population of people who are struggling with basic survival issues every day.

2 Community Project Ideas:

·                    Organize a volunteer outing to a local soup kitchen where you can serve meals and offer a yoga class to the homeless.

·                    Organize a "street retreat" where participants become homeless for a day. Project participants must spend a day (overnight optional) as a homeless person, starting with no money, no change of clothes, and no shelter. The street retreat ends with a satsang in which participants share how the experience awakened within them a deeper understanding of the plight of the homeless.

2 Simple Seva Ideas:

·                    Hold a collection drive for a particular homeless person in town. Provide that person with a group "gift basket" of clothes, food, and hygiene products to get them through the winter months.

·                     Organize a Karma clothes drive to donate to your community's homeless.